When they all drove back from Pelageya Danilovna's, Natasha, whoalways saw and noticed everything, arranged that she and Madame Schossshould go back in the sleigh with Dimmler, and Sonya with Nicholas andthe maids.

On the way back Nicholas drove at a steady pace instead of racingand kept peering by that fantastic all-transforming light into Sonya'sface and searching beneath the eyebrows and mustache for his formerand his present Sonya from whom he had resolved never to be partedagain. He looked and recognizing in her both the old and the newSonya, and being reminded by the smell of burnt cork of thesensation of her kiss, inhaled the frosty air with a full breastand, looking at the ground flying beneath him and at the sparklingsky, felt himself again in fairyland.

"Sonya, is it well with thee?" he asked from time to time.

"Yes!" she replied. "And with thee?"

When halfway home Nicholas handed the reins to the coachman andran for a moment to Natasha's sleigh and stood on its wing.

"Natasha!" he whispered in French, "do you know I have made up mymind about Sonya?"

"Oh, how strange you are with that mustache and those eyebrows!...Natasha- are you glad?"

"I am so glad, so glad! I was beginning to be vexed with you. Idid not tell you, but you have been treating her badly. What a heartshe has, Nicholas! I am horrid sometimes, but I was ashamed to behappy while Sonya was not," continued Natasha. "Now I am so glad!Well, run back to her."

"No, wait a bit.... Oh, how funny you look!" cried Nicholas, peeringinto her face and finding in his sister too something new, unusual,and bewitchingly tender that he had not seen in her before."Natasha, it's magical, isn't it?"

"Yes," she replied. "You have done splendidly."

"Had I seen her before as she is now," thought Nicholas, "I shouldlong ago have asked her what to do and have done whatever she told me,and all would have been well."

"So you are glad and I have done right?"

"Oh, quite right! I had a quarrel with Mamma some time ago about it.Mamma said she was angling for you. How could she say such a thing!I nearly stormed at Mamma. I will never let anyone say anything bad ofSonya, for there is nothing but good in her."

"Then it's all right?" said Nicholas, again scrutinizing theexpression of his sister's face to see if she was in earnest. Thenhe jumped down and, his boots scrunching the snow, ran back to hissleigh. The same happy, smiling Circassian, with mustache andbeaming eyes looking up from under a sable hood, was still sittingthere, and that Circassian was Sonya, and that Sonya was certainly hisfuture happy and loving wife.

When they reached home and had told their mother how they hadspent the evening at the Melyukovs', the girls went to theirbedroom. When they had undressed, but without washing off the corkmustaches, they sat a long time talking of their happiness. Theytalked of how they would live when they were married, how theirhusbands would be friends, and how happy they would be. On Natasha'stable stood two looking glasses which Dunyasha had preparedbeforehand.

"Only when will all that be? I am afraid never.... It would be toogood!" said Natasha, rising and going to the looking glasses.

"Sit down, Natasha; perhaps you'll see him," said Sonya.

Natasha lit the candles, one on each side of one of the lookingglasses, and sat down.

"I see someone with a mustache," said Natasha, seeing her own face.

"You mustn't laugh, Miss," said Dunyasha.

With Sonya's help and the maid's, Natasha got the glass she heldinto the right position opposite the other; her face assumed a seriousexpression and she sat silent. She sat a long time looking at thereceding line of candles reflected in the glasses and expecting(from tales she had heard) to see a coffin, or him, Prince Andrew,in that last dim, indistinctly outlined square. But ready as she wasto take the smallest speck for the image of a man or of a coffin,she saw nothing. She began blinking rapidly and moved away from thelooking glasses.

"Why is it others see things and I don't?" she said. "You sit downnow, Sonya. You absolutely must, tonight! Do it for me.... Today Ifeel so frightened!"

Sonya sat down before the glasses, got the right position, and beganlooking.

"Now, Miss Sonya is sure to see something," whispered Dunyasha;"while you do nothing but laugh."

Sonya heard this and Natasha's whisper:

"I know she will. She saw something last year."

For about three minutes all were silent.

"Of course she will!" whispered Natasha, but did not finish...suddenly Sonya pushed away the glass she was holding and covered hereyes with her hand.

Sonya had not seen anything, she was just wanting to blink and toget up when she heard Natasha say, "Of course she will!" She did notwish to disappoint either Dunyasha or Natasha, but it was hard tosit still. She did not herself know how or why the exclamation escapedher when she covered her eyes.

"Andrew lying? Is he ill?" asked Natasha, her frightened eyesfixed on her friend.

"No, on the contrary, on the contrary! His face was cheerful, and heturned to me." And when saying this she herself fancied she had reallyseen what she described.

"Well, and then, Sonya?..."

"After that, I could not make out what there was; something blue andred..."

"Sonya! When will he come back? When shall I see him! O, God, howafraid I am for him and for myself and about everything!..." Natashabegan, and without replying to Sonya's words of comfort she got intobed, and long after her candle was out lay open-eyed and motionless,gazing at the moonlight through the frosty windowpanes.

Soon after the Christmas holidays Nicholas told his mother of hislove for Sonya and of his firm resolve to marry her. The countess, whohad long noticed what was going on between them and was expecting thisdeclaration, listened to him in silence and then told her son thathe might marry whom he pleased, but that neither she nor his fatherwould give their blessing to such a marriage. Nicholas, for thefirst time, felt that his mother was displeased with him and that,despite her love for him, she would not give way. Coldly, withoutlooking at her son, she sent for her husband and, when

Pelageya Danilovna Melyukova, a broadly built, energetic womanwearing spectacles, sat in the drawing room in a loose dress,surrounded by her daughters whom she was trying to keep from feelingdull. They were quietly dropping melted wax into snow and looking atthe shadows the wax figures would throw on the wall, when they heardthe steps and voices of new arrivals in the vestibule.Hussars, ladies, witches, clowns, and bears, after clearing theirthroats and wiping the hoarfrost from their faces in the vestibule,came into the ballroom where candles were hurriedly lighted. Theclown- Dimmler- and the lady- Nicholas- started a dance. Surrounded bythe screaming children the